It is quite common to hear incongruous rises in the speech of EFL learners, and yet, native English speakers produce rising contours in the same contexts. To understand where this discrepancy comes from and how it can be avoided, this paper focuses on the forms and functions of rising contours in English through examples of French learners of English and native English speakers. Depending on the variety of English, the type of speech, the conditions in which the interaction takes place, the relationship between the interlocutors, etc., rises can take different forms and have different functions. On the basis of two studies of native read speech, it is shown that rising contours are rare and that contrary to what is stated in the literature, their main function is not to indicate non-finality and continuation, but rather to convey attitudes. The pedagogical implications of these results are of importance: in read speech, learners should try and avoid rises, even in non-final tone units. In spontaneous speech, learners should be aware of the attitude conveyed by rising terminals. A few examples are given of how the visualisation of prosody can help to better understand the contours and to better hear and produce them.